Fox News Channel dominated the cable news ratings pack on Wednesday, a night that included President Obama’s address to the nation on ISIS.
According to Nielsen estimates, the roughly 15-minute speech (9-9:15 p.m. ET) attracted 4.45 million viewers on Fox News — more than double both MSNBC (1.89 million) and CNN (1.83 million). And in the key news demo of adults 25-54, Fox News (994,000) drew as many viewers as CNN (633,000) and MSNBC (361,000) combined.
FNC’s address coverage was anchored by Megyn Kelly with contributions from Bret Baier. Kelly’s show “The Kelly File” followed up the address with its best numbers to date in both total viewers (4.5 million) and adults 25-54 (1.035 million), and “Hannity” drew its largest audience yet at 10 p.m. (2.634 million) and its second largest demo audience (606,000).
For all of primetime, Fox News beat CNN and MSNBC combined in both the demo and total viewers.
Compared to the same night a year ago, when President Obama spoke to the country about Syria, FNC was the only cable news network to show a gain in both adults 25-54 (up 7%) and total viewers (11%).
Obama on Wednesday said the U.S. will expand its air campaign against the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) and, for the first time, authorized direct attacks against the militant group.
